conzer16 Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 I'm looking at purchasing a brand new computer for the family, as I'm the most "tech" of them but still I know nothing about PC hardware! I was wondering what pieces of the current PC (dell) can be saved/recycled etc, or how do I go about destroying the hard-drive so no information such as credit card numbers can be extracted off it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ollie Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 To destroy a hard drive just drive a nail through it (which shatters the insides). As for old parts, really depends on the age of the various components because of the way the technologies change all the time, for example, DDR memory from a P4 or AMD processor isn't going to be compatible with a dual core cpu which requires DDR2 memory. List what you have and what you want, if you don't know what you have send the service tag from the back of the machine my way and I will look it up on the Dell website and let you know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorty Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 There's not really a lot worth saving from old PCs, mobos won't support new chips or have PCI express, RAM will be incompatible, the PSU won't be powerful enough. Carry over disk drives and HDDs though, if they're worth it. But destroy the HDD? Well... you could format it... or you could like... smash it. Or poke it with a strong magnet. Ooh, ooh, you could put it in the microwave! That might start a fire though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thirtynine. Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 Ram, thats about it really, everything else in your new comp will be better, oh and dont destroy the HD put it in your new comp! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
conzer16 Posted July 9, 2007 Author Share Posted July 9, 2007 These are literally the specs i pulled from the dell site, this comp is 4 years old now!!! MAY 27B INTEL PENTIUM 4 PROCESSOR 2.66GH {DIMENSION 2350} P4 2.60GHZ/512K, INTEGR 256MB 266MHZ DDR RAM MEMORY, (1X256MB) 60GB IDE (7, 200RPM) HARD DRIVE 48X CDRW/DVD COMBO DRIVE How would I go about taking the hard-drive out and putting it in a new one? I would be ordering a new one from Dell so not too sure how I would do it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorty Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 A 60GB IDE HDD is worth keeping IMO. Unless you're getting like... 300GB with your new PC and don't expect to use much of it. It's really easy to take it out and put it in the new PC. If it's IDE and the new PC has a decent HDD, you'll want this old one to be your slave HDD, so you need to take it out, keep the power cable and IDE cable (unless there's plenty spare in the new PC) and you need to set the jumper so it runs as a slave. There's usually a little guide sticker on the HDD and it's just a case of taking the bit of plastic off and putting it back on another way. Then you just screw it into the new PC and hook the power and IDE cable back up. If there's not a spare IDE slot (there should be), there's usually one half way along the cable from the DVD drive or similar. If it doesn't all run fine straight away, you can set up the disk in XP (if you're getting Vista, I don't know about that) using Computer Management in Administrative Tools in CP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emasher Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 DO NOT DESTROY THE HARD DRIVE buy a case for it and use it as an external hard drive for backups or archiving Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluejay Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 When destroying my harddrive from my old PC I broke a hammer. I am a man now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ollie Posted July 10, 2007 Share Posted July 10, 2007 IMO a 60Gb isn't worth keeping, especially as it is IDE and I think most Dells come with SATA drives these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ten10 Posted July 10, 2007 Share Posted July 10, 2007 I would trash everything personally. How you lived with such a small amount of memory is just beyond me. At the most try to copy the hard drive I'd say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Posted July 11, 2007 Share Posted July 11, 2007 Gave my old PC to a friend so he can play his old games like Quake on it. Damn thing was 7 years old this year, unbearably slow.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rummy Posted July 11, 2007 Share Posted July 11, 2007 I saw a thing about hard drives on BBC once, quite shocking stuff. Alot of trashed hard drives end up in nigeria and get scimmed proper for data and that, it was unbelievable the sorts of details they were getting from them about people. FORMATTING THE HARD DRIVE IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Apparently. I don't know the technical sides of it, but I imagine formatting it just makes it believe everything is writeable/blank space, however there's still an imprint of the data there until it is actually physically re-written. Like when you delete something off the hard drive on your computer, even from the recycle bin, the data should still exist there until the sector is actually written over like. I'd suggest breaking the shit out of it, or hitting it with some massive magnetic pulse(hard drives read/write magnetically, right?). I'd say to be 100% sure it's broken enough too. Another suggestion, though I dunno if it would work, would be something like a factory restore. How alot of pre-installed computers come these days, with OS and software already installed, and a restore disc with an image of the harddrive. I dunno how much of the harddrive those actually re-write, they might completely restore it to original condition. I remember the BBC documentary saying you could get software that would overwrite the hard drive like. I guess another option that would theoretically work, is clearing the hard drive completely, then filling it up completely with new data like? Again, I don't know alot about how they work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorty Posted July 15, 2007 Share Posted July 15, 2007 Yeah Rummy but if you format and then overwrite those "white/blank" spaces as you refer to them, say completely write the drive with 01010101, then repeat the process (alternately - 10101010) and do it like six times, then its going to be completely gone Or as you said an... erm... "magnetic pulse", whatever one of those is (set off a nuclear bomb near your HDD, you mean?) My method of choice would be driving over it. With a truck. Or maybe strapping some C4 to it. If I had C4. Or a truck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triforcemario Posted July 15, 2007 Share Posted July 15, 2007 Yeah Rummy but if you format and then overwrite those "white/blank" spaces as you refer to them, say completely write the drive with 01010101, then repeat the process (alternately - 10101010) and do it like six times, then its going to be completely gone Or as you said an... erm... "magnetic pulse", whatever one of those is (set off a nuclear bomb near your HDD, you mean?) My method of choice would be driving over it. With a truck. Or maybe strapping some C4 to it. If I had C4. Or a truck. Actually, he meant just popping a magnet next on top of it (that's what I was told in I.T class, anyway) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorty Posted July 15, 2007 Share Posted July 15, 2007 Actually, he meant just popping a magnet next on top of it (that's what I was told in I.T class, anyway)Well, that's what I suggested in my first post Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie Posted July 15, 2007 Share Posted July 15, 2007 To compeltely format your hard drive write it to zero's 7 times over, Mac's have an option to do that (which is apparently what the FBI do). You can also do it 35 times, which is taking things a little bit too far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
conzer16 Posted July 15, 2007 Author Share Posted July 15, 2007 How do I write it to zero? Format it is it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Odwin Posted July 15, 2007 Share Posted July 15, 2007 There's a freeware app called Eraser that can create a nuke floppy for you. It'll do what you want to do to your HDD. (Or your recycle bin for that matter ... or the spare space on a current hdd.) http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
conzer16 Posted July 15, 2007 Author Share Posted July 15, 2007 Thanks Mr_Odwin Looks like the ideal solution for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rummy Posted July 19, 2007 Share Posted July 19, 2007 Yeah Rummy but if you format and then overwrite those "white/blank" spaces as you refer to them, say completely write the drive with 01010101, then repeat the process (alternately - 10101010) and do it like six times, then its going to be completely gone Or as you said an... erm... "magnetic pulse", whatever one of those is (set off a nuclear bomb near your HDD, you mean?) My method of choice would be driving over it. With a truck. Or maybe strapping some C4 to it. If I had C4. Or a truck. EMP matrix stylee! I didn't really mention it as a serious suggestion, I saw some thing on TV once where they were talking about how devastating an EMP would be as some sort of weapon, they got a room and basically did it to a computer, the thing wouldn't boot at all, completely buggered up. I dunno how you'd really go about making one, but getting a magnet and proper molesting up your hard drive with it should help wipe it I imagine. Would waving a magnet around it do a good job of making data on it unrecoverable? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts